Coin Magi (XMG) is a decentralised, open-source cryptocurrency forked from Peercoin in September 2014. It is a hybrid proof-of-work/proof-of-stake cryptocurrency that allows coin generation by both mining and staking. Its mining method uses a unique M7M hashing algorithm, along with a particularly designed block rewarding system. As such, mining can only be accomplished using standard CPUs, allowing anybody with modest hardware to participate in the coin generation process, while disallowing large mining farms from taking part in mining. Original announcement.

DistroWatch.com - BitKey

BitKey is a FREE, Debian-based live Linux distribution designed for Bitcoin users; it comes with specialist utilities to perform highly secure air-gapped Bitcoin transactions. It contains a swiss army knife of handy Bitcoin tools that support a wide range of usage models, including a few very secure ones which would otherwise be difficult to perform. The system boots into one of the three available modes: "cold-offline" - for creating a wallet and signing transactions; "cold-online" - for watching the wallet and preparing transactions; "hot-online" - standard usage but less secure as the private keys are known to the computer which is connected to the internet.

Mining difficulty is expressed as the number of attempts required to find the correct solution (and to complete a block of transactions). In Bitcoin, a block is completed (on average) every 10 minutes which, by design, is a constant number. As a result, mining difficulty is a variable that changes depending on the total processing power of the Bitcoin network and (again by design) is adjusted every two weeks. In the early days of Bitcoin and during most of 2009, the mining difficulty stood at 1. By the end of 2010 it rose to 15,000 and it passed 1 million just six months later. The largest rise in Bitcoin mining difficulty took place in 2014 when it increased from 1.3 billion to 40 billion. In contrast, the mining difficulty of Litecoin, the world's second most popular cryptocurrency, stood at just over 55,000 at the end of 2014.

The Bytecoin (BCN) project has released new versions of their wallets - both the command-line client and the graphical desktop wallet have been updated. (The version numbers are not synchronised between the two branches; the command-line client, known as "Bytecoin Reference Client" is at version 2.0.6, while the desktop wallet, called "Bytecoin Wallet", moves to version 1.1.7.) The new release of the world's 10th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation provides important performance improvements: "Today the Bytecoin team rolled out two updates to Bytecoin Wallet and Bytecoin Reference Client. These releases are focused on improved performance and stability to make sure that you can use Bytecoin at its best, even on lower-performing machines. The following features are available in this version: Bytecoin Wallet can now sync and refresh faster; daemon stability was improved to avoid issues with freezing on slower computers; graceful exit is ensured by reworked controllers; corrupt database restoration manager was introduced to make the process more transparent...." Here is the full release announcement. Download links: BytecoinWallet-1.1.7.amd64.deb (4.27MB), BytecoinWallet-1.1.7.x86_64.rpm (2.96MB), BytecoinWallet-1.1.7.dmg (12.5MB), BytecoinWallet-1.1.7.win64.zip (12.7MB).

The Bytecoin (BCN) project is one of the first to release an update to patch a recently-discovered critical flaw in CryptoNote, a third-party protocol that provides anonymity of transactions. As a result, Bytecoin has updated both their command-line reference client (to version 2.0.2) and their graphical wallet client (to version 1.1.2). "It is essential that we shed some light on the recent fatal flaws in the CryptoNote-based currencies that has been disclosed in a recent blog post on May 17th, 2017. In brief, the researchers have found a specific way to modify the 'key image' used in CryptoNote algorithm which allowed double-spending and possibly led to creating excessive coins. ... 693 million Bytecoin have been emitted as the result of the bug, which amounts for 0.37% of the total emission amount of 183 billion. Upon noticing, we put necessary efforts in patching the bug and released the updated Bytecoin version and contacted the mining services, notifying them of the released fix and making sure they update the software and by that prevent the erroneous blocks from appearing." See the full announcement for more details. Download: BytecoinWallet-1.1.2.amd64.deb (4.26MB), BytecoinWallet-1.1.2.x86_64.rpm (2.95MB), BytecoinWallet-1.1.2.dmg (12.5MB), BytecoinWallet-1.1.2.win64.zip (12.7MB).

Harry Ullman has announced the release of Bytecoin (BCN) 1.0.10, a new stable version of the wallet client from a built-from-scratch cryptocurrency project that focuses on transaction privacy and anonymity: "Bytecoin 1.0.10: new block size and RPC wallet with fusion transactions. On April 11, a new version of Bytecoin was released. From now on, the RPC wallet is able to use fusion transactions and the Bytecoin block size has been increased from 20,000 bytes to 100,000 bytes. In addition, the RPC wallet API has been updated. New method save() is now available. It allows to save the wallet file in any moment. Also, several bugs have been fixed, which increased the Bytecoin wallet's reliability. The new Bytecoin GUI wallet now contains updated in-wallet node. For reliable and stable operation, we recommend to update the Bytecoin wallet." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information. Download the new Bytecoin wallet from here: BytecoinWallet-1.0.10.amd64.deb (3.06MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.10.x86_64.rpm (2.05MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.10.dmg (11.7MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.10.win64.zip (12.0MB).

Harry Ullman has announced the release of Bytecoin (BCN) 1.0.9, the latest stable release from the project's built-from-scratch cryptocurrency that focuses on privacy and anonymity of transactions: "The new version of RPC Wallet was released on December 9th. Now, the wallet has a number of new features, including direct operation of the RPC Wallet with the blockchain. Besides, special functions were created to simplify some operations, which, before now, could be performed only by using a number of functions. In addition, Bytecoin Wallet 1.0.9 will be presented in this release. It displays data concerning the performed transactions in more accurate and detailed manner. Bytecoin RPC Wallet was developed specifically for the needs of online business. It features a user-friendly API that allows a businessmen to connect their online businesses to the Bytecoin Platform." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details. Download the new wallet client from here: BytecoinWallet-1.0.9.amd64.deb (3.03MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.9.x86_64.rpm (2.02MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.9.dmg (11.7MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.9.win64.zip (10.8MB).

Harry Ullman has announced the release of Bytecoin (BCN) 1.0.8, an updated build of the cryptocurrency project's wallet client - now with the ability to send and receive micro-donations: "The Bytecoin team has released a new wallet, version 1.0.8. This version features an option to perform micro-donations via the Bytecoin platform. It is the first step towards bringing donation-based business model up to a new level using top-notch Internet technologies. In addition, we have introduced a 32-bit edition of the wallet and RPM packages for Linux operating systems in this update. The main features of Bytecoin's micro-donations: easy to donate - you only have to adjust settings once; easy to implement - in order to start receiving donations, you only have to publish a link to your Bytecoin account; fee-free donations - due to the fact that donation is a part of the main transaction, it is not subject to any fees." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information and a screenshot. Download links for Linux, OS X and Windows: BytecoinWallet-1.0.8.amd64.deb (2.78MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.8.x86_64.rpm (1.83MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.8.dmg (11.6MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.8.win64.zip (10.6MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.8.win32.zip (9.17MB).

Harry Ullman has announced the release of Bytecoin (BCN) 1.0.7.1, the latest stable version from the cryptocurrency project whose goal is enhanced transaction privacy and anonymity. This release updates the command-line reference client only; the graphical wallet client has been updated to version 1.0.6.1. From the release announcement: "Today Bytecoin has been updated to v.1.0.7.1. This release is mainly devoted to enhanced network stability and simplewallet improvements. Among various optimizations introduced in this Bytecoin version, the synchronization process has been significantly reviewed in order to avoid any potential issues. We urge you to update your daemons and wallets to the most recent version. Apart from the mentioned improvements, today's release also defines the internal Fusion Manager interface which will be responsible for fusion transactions. The latter is the special type of zero fee transactions designed for optimizing users wallets. In layman terms, the process will be similar to changing a number of coins into a smaller number of larger banknotes. It will decrease the size of the ordinary transactions, allowing greater flexibility and higher anonymity level." Download the Bytecoin wallet clients from SourceForge: BytecoinWallet-1.0.6.1.amd64.deb (2.93MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.6.1.dmg (11.4MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.6.1.win64.zip (10.6MB).

Harry Ullman has announced the release of Bytecoin (BCN) 1.0.5, the latest update from the cryptocurrency project that focuses on transaction privacy and anonymity. The new version comes with and integrated miner and block explorer built into the wallet: "The Bytecoin team is glad to announce version 1.0.5. It includes updated Bytecoin wallet, which now allows pool mining, and it adds inherent solution for real-time transactions pool synchronization ensuring that most transactions will be processed in 120 seconds. These features turn the wallet into an integral control center, allowing to receive and send transactions, mine BCN using any pool, and navigate the block explorer. Real-time transactions pool synchronization is a solution which guarantees that all network nodes have similar unconfirmed transactions lists. As soon as one node receives user's transaction, it ensures that this transaction is included into transactions pools of all nodes." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details. Download links: BytecoinWallet-1.0.5.amd64.deb (2.93MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.5.dmg (11.4MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.5.win64.zip (10.6MB).

The Bytecoin development team has announced the release of Bytecoin (BCN) 1.0.4, an updated version of the cryptocurrency project's wallet client. Bytecoin, built from scratch, focuses on privacy and anonymity of transactions. From the release announcement "We have updated Bytecoin to version 1.0.4. The main part of the update is the Bytecoin RPC Wallet that substantially improves operation of third-party applications and services in the Bytecoin network via RPC. Thanks to RPC Wallet the merchandisers can easily connect their shops to the Bytecoin network and start automatically accepting payments. This service will also boost performance and simplify connecting exchanges and other third party services. Main features of Bytecoin RPC Wallet: we have paid much attention to wallet efficiency, bytecoin RPC wallet requires small amount of RAM for operation; being cross-platform, RPC Wallet can run as a daemon (Linux/OS X) and as a service (Windows)...." Download links for Linux (Debian-based distributions), OS X and Windows clients: BytecoinWallet-1.0.4.amd64.deb (2.79MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.4.dmg (11.4MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.4.win64.zip (10.5MB). For those readers who are new to Bytecoin please see Five easy ways to get Bytecoins.

Version 1.0.3 of Bytecoin (BCN) has been released. Bytecoin is a privacy and anonymity oriented cryptocurrency built from scratch; it uses the CryptoNight algorithm for increased transaction anonymity. This version is the first in a series of upcoming releases that would eventually lead to a GUI wallet client. "Bytecoin 1.0.3 reference client has been released. The newly released Bytecoin reference client 1.0.3 is the next significant updated for the Bytecoin Core. It's an important milestone on the way to standardize various components' access to Bytecoin network and a requirement for Bytecoin GUI wallet, which is coming out later this week. The 1.0.3 release notes focus on the following updates: in-process INode implementation for applications; low-level ITransaction API interface for ordinary and multisig transactions; Simplewallet migration to high-level API (namely, INode plus IWallet); instant transaction notifications for in-process INode." Visit the project's news page to read the full release announcement. Download the new wallet software from SourceForge: BytecoinWallet-1.0.3.amd64.deb (2.99MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.3.dmg (11.3MB), BytecoinWallet-1.0.3.win64.zip (10.7MB).